Cartennae or Cartenna.. was an ancient Carthaginian and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

port at present-day

Ténès Ténès (; from Berber TNS 'camping') is a town in Algeria located around 200 kilometers west of the capital Algiers. , it has a population of 65,000 people. History Ténès was founded as a Phoenician port in or before the 8th centuryBC. As ...

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

. Under the Romans, it was part of the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Mauretania Caesariensis Mauretania Caesariensis (Latin for "Caesarea, Numidia, Caesarean Mauretania") was a Roman province located in present-day Algeria. The full name refers to its capital Caesarea, Numidia, Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell). The province had ...

Name

Cartenna's name was variously recorded by the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

as ''Karténna'' (), ''Kártina'' (), ''Kártinna'' (), and ''Karténnai'' (). It was usually Latinized as Cartennae or Cartenna, but appears as Cartinna in Mela. These names seem to combine the

Punic The Punic people, usually known as the Carthaginians (and sometimes as Western Phoenicians), were a Semitic people who migrated from Phoenicia to the Western Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age. In modern scholarship, the term ''Punic'' ...

word for "city" () with a

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

placename element (), also seen in the Phoenician names for

Cirta Cirta, also known by #Names, various other names in classical antiquity, antiquity, was the ancient Berbers, Berber, Punic people, Punic and Roman Empire, Roman settlement which later became Constantine, Algeria, Constantine, Algeria. Cirta was ...

, Tipasa, and

Sabratha Sabratha (; also ''Sabratah'', ''Siburata''), in the Zawiya DistrictCape Tenes. The plural form Cartennae seems to allude to a second Berber settlement that existed upstream. Notionally refounded as a Roman colony, it was also known as after its imperial patron.

History

Phoenician colony

Cartennae was established as a Phoenician

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

by the 8th centuryBC. It lay at the mouth of the Wadi Allala (the classical Cartennus). In addition to trading in the usual

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...

, hides, and cedar of the interior, Cartennae was apparently the site of an important copper mine.. Like other colonies in the western Mediterranean, Cartennae eventually fell under Carthaginian control.

Roman colony

After the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...

, Cartennae was dominated by the Romans. The first emperor

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

established a

of veterans from the 2nd Legion there. in 30BC and the city started to grow in importance. Augustus even founded in what is now coastal

the following Roman colonies:

Igilgili Igilgili was a Berber town and a Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman colony in located in present-day Jijel, Algeria. History Igilgili was initially a small Carthaginian colony and trading port (, , or , ). This name seems to combine (, " ...

, Saldae, Tubusuctu, Rusazu, Rusguniae, Aquae Calidae, Zuccabar and Gunugu. All these colonies were connected to Cartennae in a military way with strong commercial links. During the centuries of Roman domination Cartennae was a rich city with a forum, theater, baths,

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

and aqueducts, but it was devastated during the revolt of Firmus in the years 372–375. Despite the continuation of its name in modern

, identification of the site was long delayed by misinformation in surviving geographical accounts of Roman North Africa, including

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

the Antonine Itineraries. Distances in the gazetteers were apparently thrown off by Ptolemy's misreckoning of longitude and by the lack of

Roman roads Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

in the area, requiring distances to be estimated by sailors. The French first confused Cartennae with

Mostaganem Mostaganem () is a port city in and capital of Mostaganem (province), Mostaganem province, in the northwest of Algeria. The city, founded in the 11th century lies on the Gulf of Arzew, Mediterranean Sea and is 72 km ENE of Oran. It is consi ...

, to the west, but the discovery of epitaphs a few years later in Ténès helped solve the mistake. A

necropolis A necropolis (: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'' (). The term usually implies a separate burial site at a distan ...

has been excavated and formerly served as a public park.

Later history

Cartennae was sacked by the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

during their 5th-century invasion of

Roman North Africa Africa was a Roman province on the northern coast of the continent of Africa. It was established in 146 BC, following the Roman Republic's conquest of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisi ...

and presumably reconquered by the Byzantines during their resumption of control over the area. It was almost entirely destroyed following the conquest of the area by the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member o ...

. The bleakness of its situation militated against resettlement; medieval Tenes was a separate settlement about away, settled by

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...

in the 9th century. Following the town's surrender to the invading French in 1843, the former site of Cartennae became the center of the new French town established in 1847..

Religion

Cartennae was a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

bishopric In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

in antiquity and the early medieval period and was reëstablished as a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

titular see A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbi ...

in the 20th century. The earliest known bishops of Cartennae were Rogatus (from whom came the name " Rogatism") and Vincentius, who espoused the belief that the church should not use force to compel orthodox belief; their arguments survive only in the form of StAugustine's invective against them.Stefano Antonio Morcelli
''Africa christiana''
Volume I, Brescia 1816, pp. 122–123 Anatole-Joseph Toulotte
''Géographie de l'Afrique chrétienne. Maurétanies''
Montreuil-sur-mer 1894, pp. 54-57 Other known bishops are Rusticus, who in 418 assisted at the disputation between

Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman province), Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced th ...

and the Donatist Emeritus in Caesarea in Mauretania; Victor, a contemporary of Genseric (and therefore of the mid-5th century) and the author of several works; and Lucidus, one of the Catholic bishops whom

Huneric Huneric, Hunneric or Honeric (died December 23, 484) was King of the (North African) Vandal Kingdom (477–484) and the oldest son of Gaiseric. He abandoned the imperial politics of his father and concentrated mainly on internal affairs. He was ma ...

summoned to Carthage in 484 and then exiled.Pius Bonifacius Gams
''Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae''
Leipzig 1931, p. 465

References

Citations

Bibliography

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